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Wednesday, November 09, 2011

Hank Skinner's wife Sandrine Ageorges-Skinner will be one of the speakers this weekend at the national conference of the Campaign to End the Death Penalty, which is being held for the first time in Austin, Texas.

Attend the conference and come hear Sandrine talk about Hank's case. Also speaking will be Liz Gilbert, the friend of Todd Willingham who was instrumental in finding a fire expert to reexamine the evidence in his case.

The murder of Troy Davis by the state of Georgia on September 21 horrified millions of people the world over—and has sparked a renewed national discussion of the death penalty in the United States. We will spend the weekend sharing our stories and experiences, working to build our forces and strategizing the next steps forward for our movement and our organization.

The renewed national discussion about the death penalty, in the media and among activists, is about innocence and the death penalty – but it is also about the racism in the criminal justice system. It shows the urgent need to strike a final blow to capital punishment and to challenge the whole INjustice system – the system that Michelle Alexander calls the New Jim Crow. As Troy Davis said before his execution:

"There are so many more Troy Davis’. This fight to end the death penalty is not won or lost through me but through our strength to move forward and save every innocent person in captivity around the globe. We need to dismantle this Unjust system city by city, state by state and country by country."

The CEDP annual national convention will take up questions on how to build a movement that combats racism in the criminal justice system, supports resistance behind bars, aims to end mass incarceration and harsh punishment and makes the death penalty history.

And with Governor Rick Perry running for president, the eyes of the nation are on the Texas death machine and what activists are doing to fight it – we have a chance to shine a spotlight on the death penalty in Texas with this year's convention. Click here to download the full program for the convention.

The convention kicks off with a Friday evening event at the University of Texas, "Southern Injustice: Fighting racism and the death penalty".

Friday, November 11th at 7 PM
Burdine Hall, Room 136, University of Texas at AustinThe panel features

Sandrine Ageorges Skinner (wife of Texas death row prisoner Hank Skinner, scheduled to be killed on November 9th), Jesse Muhammad (Activist and journalist with the Nation of Islam out of Houston) and Sandra Reed (mother of Texas death row prisoner Rodney Reed.)

Other sessions over the weekend include:

We ARE all Troy Davis: The struggle continues * The Prison System is the New Jim Crow * Prisoner Resistance: From Attica to DRIVE to Pelican Bay * Rick Perry, Cameron Todd Willingham and the scandal of the Texas death penalty * The Texas Law of Parties: What it is and why we need to fight it. * Not in our name: How executions create victims on both sides.